Techno-economic evaluation of small-hydro power plants: Modelling and characterisation of the Abruzzo region in Italy

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe potential of "small hydro" power generation in Europe is still largely unexploited because of strict environmental requirements and legal rights for water use. Among the EU-27 member states, Italy is recognised as one of the most promising countries for the further exploitation of small hydro power.This paper presents a methodology for assessing the technical and economic potential of small hydro on a regional scale. The methodology is applied to the Abruzzo region in Italy. The investigation covers approximately 90 river branches belonging to the major regional basins. The methodology characterises the flow duration curves of suitable stretches of river using a regional analysis based on a graphical approach.An energy model evaluates the rated power and the annual electricity production of installable smallhydro power plants based on the flow duration curve and the type of hydraulic turbine. The economic analysis estimates the unit cost of electricity produced and the profitability of the initial investment assuming two scenarios based on different fixed-and variable-cost models. The net potential obtained from the energy analysis is adjusted to give the economically feasible potential at different levels of economic competitiveness for the regional basins investigated.

Hamiltonian analysis of a hydro-energy generation system in the transient of sudden load increasing

“…From the point of view of the transmission and dissipation of energy, putting the HEGS into the theory frame of the generalized Hamiltonian system is a new research approach to study the energy characteristics of the HEGS [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. In previous studies, The introduced random function cannot truly describe the dynamic change of the hydropower system with time.…”

Dynamic analysis of multi-unit hydropower systems in transient process

“…Conversely, the research referred to transient processes is quite limited [17,22]. In spite of this, in the actual operation of hydropower stations, transient processes are directly related to the dynamic behavior of hydropower plants [28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to fully understand and model the dynamic characteristics of multi-unit hydropower systems in transient process.…”

Cost Analysis of Mini Hydro Power Plant Using Bacterial Swarm Optimization

“…Cavazzini calculated the investment cost of very mini and micro hydro power plants using power, head and flow parameters for mechanical and electrical equipment costs [2]. Carapelluci examined in terms of economic, technical and potential the mini-scale hydro power plants located in the Abruzzo region of Italy [3]. Elbatran has examined low-power hydro power plants in terms of performance, operation and costs [5].…”

“…Filho made a cost estimate using the appearance factor in a mini and small scale hydro power plant [10]. In these studies, heuristic optimization methods have been substantially used [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Heuristic optimization methods are often used to solve problems that the solution space is not determined [12][13][14].…”